The rise and demise of unemployment

Jérôme Gautié

Chapter 2 in Handbook of Labour Market Policy in Advanced Democracies, 2023, pp 14-26 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Unemployment has been considered as a great - if not the greatest - economic and social evil in rich democracies since the beginning of the 20th century. This chapter deals with unemployment as a concept - i.e., both a cognitive and public policy category. This concept was built at the end of the 19th century as a category of representation and public intervention. It became a key economic issue and policy target from the interwar period, and, after WWII, full employment was set as a priority. An ever more elaborated economic expertise played a crucial role in defining the public policies to maintain or restore low unemployment rates. But in recent decades unemployment has been increasingly questioned as a relevant category to account for the labour market slack and associated social evils.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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